Kill List: thrilling British hit man film is a killer [MOVIE REVIEW]

Neil Maskell
Jay (Neil Maskell) & Gal (Michael Smiley) in Ben Wheatley’s" Kill List."
Neil Maskell

Jay (Neil Maskell) & Gal (Michael Smiley) in Ben Wheatley’s" Kill List."

“Kill List,” nominated in almost every conceivable major category at the 2011 British Independent Film Awards (and a winner for Michael Smiley as best supporting actor), is stylish, paced like the thriller it is, darkly clever and ultimately grotesque and horrifying beyond imagination for regardless of any other descriptor, “Kill List” is a horror film.

Jay (Neil Maskell), a highly paid and previously successful hit man has been laid up at home with shrewish wife Shel (MyAnna Buring), a beautiful blonde clearly out of his league, and his adorable young son. Jay has been unable to work since his last job and is undergoing some sort of psychotic break. This is immaterial to Shel as they are out of money, having blown the last big bundle on a hot tub and “miscellaneous” expenses. Jay, recognizing his present limitations, knows he is over his head, having badly botched his last job in Kiev, and refuses to look for work. Instead, work comes looking for him in the form of his best friend and business partner Gal (Michael Smiley). A mysterious client has promised a huge sum in exchange for the assassinations of three men, the identities of whom will be kept secret until just before the assignation. Jay’s performance anxiety says no but Shel and Gal convince him that this will be his ticket out. Jay should have obeyed his inner voice. Before the job is finished, both Gal and Jay will beg to be let out of their commitment. Beaten down, they agree to finish because the threatened punishment for their failure to complete are too dire to contemplate. But Jay’s already erratic behavior intensifies and becomes more terrifying as time goes on, eventually leading to an unexpected twist with consequences so horrifying neither he nor Shel nor Gal could ever have imagined.

Directed by Ben Wheatley and written by Wheatley and Amy Jump, this team has created a film as psychological as it is violent, the kind of violence that makes tolerant adults turn their heads in avoidance of anticipated outcomes. And yet, as gross and horrific as some of the acts are, the pacing, character deterioration, story turns and sympathetic portrayals (if a hitman could ever fall into that category) make this film compelling viewing. The manipulations at the soul of this scenario are smart, diabolical and gradually build until even the audience is drawn in as co-conspirator. Greatly adding weight and dimension to the film are the cast of unknowns, or at least unknown State-side, Wheatley has cast in the primary roles. Interestingly, all the actors come from a comedy background with varying degrees of experience. Previously the groomsman and never the groom, Neil Maskell, in his first starring role, effectively reveals the many colors, albeit dark ones, of Jay’s personality and descent into darkness. MyAnna Buring’s Shel is at once an acquisitive bitch and nurturing wife and mother, standing up to her husband’s violent outbursts while encouraging him in his profession for she is well aware of how he earns his living. Best of all is Michael Smiley as Jay’s best friend and confidante. As portrayed by Smiley, Gal is a man who knows his business well and lets no emotion pass through him as he performs his highly paid tasks, but in his civilian life no one could have a better or more supportive and understanding friend. Gal, with his sangfroid and blank expression is the man no one would notice passing by; Jay in his present life is the man you would never miss.

Wheatley successfully infuses enough mystery, pacing and domestic family drama into “Kill List” that the viewer is ultimately sucked into the film he actually intended; the juxtaposition of domesticity with wholesale violence underscores the horror that much more, making the final twist that much more devastating. The cinematography of Laurie Rose is appropriately gritty and the editing by Robin Hill, Wheatley and Jump is particularly effective at keeping the pace swift and the quick cutting disorienting.

Opening Friday February 3 at the Cinefamily on Fairfax (formerly the Silent Movie Theater). Or get it on VOD.

Neely also writes a blog about writers in television and film at No Meaner Place.

 

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